Give Pete Lovering a hand — for being the world's best Rock, Paper, Scissors player. The job-hunting Web site operator has won the World Rock Paper Scissors Society's first open international championship. He was among more than 250 grownups who took part in the competiton over the weekend in Toronto. Gosh. With that on his resume, he's set for life...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/18/2002 08:08 am ||
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Glad they qualified that these were "grown ups" - could have fooled me!
Posted by: Jack ||
11/19/2002 7:39 Comments ||
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I know this is old - but in Afghanistan they call it "Rock".
Posted by: El Id ||
11/19/2002 9:04 Comments ||
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Saudi security police Saturday night shot and wounded a terror suspect who resisted arrest and fired at security men who tried to detain him in Riyadh, an interior ministry spokesman told the official Saudi Press Agency SPA Monday. But, I thought there were no terrorists is Saudi?
"Mohammad al-Sahim, wanted on security charges, tried to flee and shot at security forces who managed to arrest him after shooting him in the right leg," the spokesman said. No policemen were hurt in the incident Saturday, SPA said. The spokesman denied reports that the man was a member of the al-Qaeda terror group. Nope, no al-Qaeda here.
Saad al-Faqih, spokesman for the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform (MIR) said the incident took place on Saturday in Al-Shifa, south of the Saudi capital. Shooting broke out as police attempted to arrest a group of some fifty "young mujahedeen" armed sympathizers of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network who were meeting in a house. Imagine that, armed mujahedeen. Wonder what they were meeting about?
Apart from the one injured and detained, police have launched a manhunt for the suspects who fled, said the MIR spokesman, who quoted local residents. A witness said the clash took place at around 1:00 pm (local time). Almost 15 Saudi veterans of fighting in Afghanistan were at the meeting when police launched the raid, said the witness, who described himself as an "Afghan Arab", according to AFP. 15 vets out of 50 attendees. Telling how they kicked ass back in the day to impress the young troops.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/18/2002 10:19 am ||
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Uh huh. Yah. armed sympathizers of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network is probably as close we'll get to the truth about these guys from the Soddies...
Members of Iran's Islamic hardline Basij militia have detained 36 people after a raid on a "depraved" mixed soiree near Tehran, a newspaper said Sunday. Jomhuri-e-Eslami said 33 men and three women were arrested and a number of "immoral CDs and videotapes" seized in the raid near the town of Karaj. Mixed private parties, especially where alcohol is consumed, are liable to raids by police or Islamic militiamen. Punishments for attending such parties include hefty fines, spells in jail and flogging. I'm not sure my imagination extends to visualizing what the ayatollahs might consider "immoral CDs and videotapes." Some of my junk mail would cause their turbans to unravel...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/18/2002 08:08 am ||
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Partridge Family?
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/18/2002 13:23 Comments ||
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I wonder if the Islamnazis get as much porno spam as I get on their computers? That stuff can jam you up for weeks at a time. ;)wink, wink, hint, hint.
Posted by: Jack ||
11/19/2002 7:51 Comments ||
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Iran's foreign ministry firmly rejected allegations that the Islamic republic has been providing military assistance to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, IRNA reported Monday. "We only give moral and spiritual support to the Palestinian people," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi was quoted as saying. The Israeli media, notably radio Israel, has accused Iran of helping Hamas produce a new rocket. "Nope. Nope. Not us..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/18/2002 08:08 am ||
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Isn't part of the paleo's "spirit(ual)" to become a martyr and take as many Israelis as he/her can?
Posted by: Jack ||
11/19/2002 7:48 Comments ||
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Thousands of Iranian university students on Monday defied warnings of a crackdown by stepping up their protests with vocal demands for greater freedom of speech. Witnesses said at least 5,000 massed at Tehran's Sharif university campus in a continuation of protests over the sentencing to death for blasphemy of prominent reformist academic Hashem Aghajari. "Our problem is not only the revision of the death sentence on Hashem Aghajari, but freedom of speech and freedom in general," Abdollah Momeni, a leader of the Office to Consolidate Unity (OCU) student group, told the gathering. Breaking the principle of disagreement with the ayatollahs being disagreement with God breaks the keel of the ship of theocracy. If you don't have to follow blindly, then sometimes you might not even have to follow at all...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/18/2002 08:08 am ||
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Backed by U.S. threats of force, U.N. inspectors landed in Iraq on Monday to resume the search for weapons of mass destruction in a mission that could determine whether the Gulf is plunged into a new war. After the L-100 cargo plane with a black "U.N." on its side arrived at Baghdad airport, chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix told reporters that credible inspections were "in the interest of Iraq and the interest of the world. "We are here to do a job and we will do it professionally and, I hope, competently." Blix, Mohamed ElBaradei, who oversees the International Atomic Energy Agency, and their team were met at the airport by an Iraqi delegation led by Gen. Hosam Amin, head of the national monitoring directorate, which was set up as a counterpart to U.N. inspection teams. This should be interesting. Let the games begin!
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/18/2002 08:10 am ||
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The word is that the iraqi government has to list its WMD assets on December 8th to the UN. I'm expecting an Adlai Stevenson flipchart moment after they annouce "we dont got nuthin man!"
I think Negroponte is gonna make a big presentation with some pretty heavy photographic and phyisical evidence that they do in fact have some very, very bad things.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
11/18/2002 12:36 Comments ||
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American intelligence has intensified its information-gathering campaign about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme as Washington prepares to provide the inspectors with the data to counter Baghdad's concealment efforts. In a significant breakthrough, the claims of Adnan al-Haideri, an Iraqi civil engineer who defected to America last year and revealed how Saddam was building underground vaults to hide chemical and biological weapons laboratories, have been backed up by US spy plane missions. The aircraft are fitted with a device that detects underground voids - such as bunkers and tunnels - through variations in the earth's gravitational field. The device found a void where Mr al-Haideri said there was a subterranean nerve-agent laboratory. And there will a much bigger "void" there later.
Several scientists responsible for Iraq's WMD programme have been shifted out of the country on false passports already to prevent the inspectors questioning them, leading exiles have told The Telegraph. In the past fortnight two scientists have been sent to Yemen, two elsewhere in the Middle East and one each to Romania, Malaysia and Singapore, according to the Iraqi National Accord (INA), an opposition group with good contacts within the regime. U.N. resolution says we can take them outside the country to interview them. Since they are already outside Iraq, that should make it easier, if we can find them.
Dr Ayad Alawi, the INA's leader, also disclosed that the regime was moving documents and materials from weapons laboratories and a ballistic-missile site into hospitals, schools and mosques in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk. These should be the first sites looked at, and where the inspection teams won't be let in due to "sensitivity".
The concealment operation is being co-ordinated by Brig Gen Walid al-Nasri, a trusted aide from Saddam's home region of Tikrit who reports directly to Qusay Hussein, the dictator's second son and head of his powerful State Security Organisation. Qusay's the smart one.
An official of the US Defence Intelligence Agency said: "They have trained large numbers of personnel in how to deal with an intrusive inspection regime." These "clean-up" squads have developed methods for rapidly cleaning and sterilising equipment such as fermenters and centrifuges used to manufacture and store chemical and biological agents. "Expendable" is what these guys are. I don't think they will have much in the way of protective gear.
The plan is that US intelligence will provide the UN inspectors with the "killer" data once America is ready for the military finale. The inspectors would then make unannounced spot checks while the US kept the sites under surveillance relayed live by unmanned spy drones. This is when the shit will really hit the fan. We'll have video of the inspectors at the front gate and the trucks going out the back. Predator will follow the trucks to their new home, and we start over until someone blinks.
Washington believes the Iraqis will be seen either trying to conceal weapons material or will be caught out. The UN Security Council will be allowed a short time to debate, but the Pentagon will already have launched the final, brief countdown to war. 10..9..8..7.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/18/2002 10:53 am ||
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"The aircraft are fitted with a device that detects underground voids - such as bunkers and tunnels - through variations in the earth's gravitational field."
United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has suggested that Iraqi soldiers who stay in their barracks if there is a US-led invasion will be left alone. "It is certainly correct that people who stay in their barracks, that people who do not engage in the use of weapons of mass destruction or attack coalition forces will not have problems," Mr Rumsfeld said as he arrived in Santiago. Hide under your bed, and everything will be alright.
However, he warned that there would be no leniency towards those who did use such weapons. "Let there be no doubt. Anyone who is involved in the use of weapons of mass destruction will be particularly held accountable in the event it becomes necessary," Mr Rumsfeld said. "Held accountable" = dead.
Mr Rumsfeld said large parts of the army and other sections of the Iraqi administration - for example the police and civilian services - were being held hostage by the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, and a small clique of his closest supporters and family. The Iraqi army has more than 350,000 troops, but it is the highly-trained Republican Guards surrounding the president who, analysts predict, could pose the biggest problem. The Special Republican Guard are the ones doing that.
"There are very elite elements that are very close to a personal guard for the family (of the Iraqi leader) and the clique who are not hostages, who are benefiting from the regime and who are enabling Saddam Hussein and his family to rule that country," Mr Rumsfeld said. They have to fight or get hung from lampposts when Saddam goes down.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/18/2002 11:23 am ||
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Get 'em to stay in their barracks. Of course that's the first thing we're gonna bomb but shhhhh, don't tell 'em that.
Posted by: Bob ||
11/18/2002 16:11 Comments ||
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Not at all. After some intensive training and with american officers leading from the front, we'll have a nice little Arab Legion with which to keep the peace in the region. (Now wouldn't that keep the princes up at night)
Posted by: Steve ||
11/18/2002 19:57 Comments ||
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Thousands of Iranian students demanding political reform have clashed with hardline militia groups in the capital, Tehran. Witnesses said about 5,000 students gathered at the Sharif Technical University campus to protest against the death sentence passed down to pro-reform academic Hashem Aghajari earlier this month. Fighting between the two sides is said to have broken out towards the end of a speech by a student, when several hundred hardline militants entered a hall in the university where the students were and began punching and kicking them. Earlier reports said they were throwing desks and chairs.
The group later dispersed, but some of the students were reported to have sustained light injuries. The expected crackdown appears to have started in a small way.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/18/2002 11:54 am ||
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Is there a farsi version of Alice Coopers "schools out" or The Ramones "rock n' roll high school"?
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
11/18/2002 12:28 Comments ||
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Definitely time for excessive use of force. These so-called "hardline militants" have homes they go to eventually, now don't they? Be a real shame if some of 'em was to have accidents. Fall down a flight of stairs or somethin'. Accidentally pull the pin on one of their grenades...
A land mine exploded under a passenger bus Monday as it traveled through a dense forest in southern India, killing at least 20 people, police said. The bus was completely destroyed in the attack, about 125 miles north of Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh state. After the blast, the attackers opened fire on the flaming wreckage, apparently mistaking it for a police transport, said Gautam Swang, deputy inspector-general of the district police. It wasn't who you think it was.
He said the bus was carrying more than 40 passengers and that at least 20 had been killed. The survivors, including many critically injured, were taken to the nearest village, but there was no doctor there to treat them, he said. Swang blamed the leftist People's War Group, which mostly targets rich landowners, police and government officials. The group claims to be inspired by the communist ideology of Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong. After all these years, you would think people would have figured out Mao was wrong.
Police had been patrolling the forest area Monday after exchanging fire with the rebels over the weekend. At least five of the rebels were killed Sunday. The People's War Group is fighting for an independent homeland in five southern Indian states. More than 6,000 people have died in the fighting since in 1981. Another war no one in the west hears about.
The thick forest where the bus blast occurred is dotted with hamlets and small villages. The rebels are able to hide and regroup easily there, but Swanga said the latest attack could turn local supporters against them. They missed that page in Mao's little red book about hiding in the sea of people. When you start killing the people hiding you, your support base turns on you.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/18/2002 02:36 pm ||
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Chinese authorities in Shenzhen, on the border with Hong Kong, have hired kung-fu masters to protect judges and anti-graft officers amid growing threats to their safety. A report in the China-backed Wen Wei Po said the number of newly-recruited police officers working for the Shenzhen prosecution service has risen to more than a dozen from just three in the past year, with the majority specially trained in kung-fu.
Jiang Qinghai, head of the police force attached to the Shenzhen Prosecution Service, was quoted by the paper as saying at least two of the newly-recruited legal police officers were national martial arts champions. And you all thought those Jackie Chan movies were fictional.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/18/2002 03:19 pm ||
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After one kung-fu class the equation force equals mass times acceleration gains a deeper meaning.
An Israeli-Arab man who tried to storm the cockpit of an Israeli jetliner told interrogators he wanted to crash the plane into a Tel Aviv building in a Sept. 11-like attack, Turkey's private NTV television reported Monday. Not very original, is he?
Security guards aboard the airliner on Sunday overpowered the man, who was apparently armed with a pocket knife and threatened a stewardess. None of the 170 passengers on board the Boeing 757 were harmed and the plane landed safely.The suspect, identified by the semi-official Anatolia news agency as 23-year-old Israeli Arab, Tawfiq Fukra, was being questioned by anti-terrorism squads in Istanbul. Anatolia quoted Fukra as telling interrogators he had "carried out the action to protest" against Israel. Turkish anti-terrorism squads have magnificent moustachios. They've been making the finest truncheons in the world since 1483.
Army Radio quoted Fukra's father, Salah, as saying his son shouldn't be called a hijacker just because he fought with a stewardess. Okay Cakirlar, an official at Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport, said El Al Flight 581 sent out a hijacking signal as it approached Istanbul. The man first threatened a flight attendant with a knife and then kicked the door of the cockpit but the door was locked, some passengers said. Security guards posing as a passengers subdued him, they said. "Nope. Nope. M'boy's not a hijacker. He's, ummm... something else."
He said his son was going to Turkey for vacation. Looks like it'll be a lo-o-o-o-o-ng vacation.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
11/18/2002 08:08 am ||
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wonder if he's seen Midnight Express? heh heh
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/18/2002 14:04 Comments ||
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What was that movie about Turkish prisons?
Or, will they quietly extradite him to Israel?
Kemal's, makers of fine truncheons since 1483. Truncheon maker to emirs and pashas. When you care enought to use the very best.
#3
Interesting side bit to all of this is that this guy will wish he was in an Israeli jail. Ever since the latest infitada, their are no paleo's left working construction or services in Israel (where they use to dominate, much like the Irish navvies in the UK). Their place has been take by Israel's second best friend in the world - you guessed it - Turkey.
Posted by: Jack ||
11/19/2002 7:55 Comments ||
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Hamas said Monday that it carried out the Friday shooting attack in Hebron that killed 12 Israelis. On Friday, the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. They didn't do it, it was us!
An official statement released by the military wing of Hamas, Ezzedin Al Qassam, described the events of the attacks, beginning with the first shots at an Israeli convoy.
The statement said that two armed Hamas members opened fire on an Israeli jeep and on settlers that arrived to help the wounded. Hamas said that only after 15 minutes of battle did they realize that a second Palestinian group had also become involved. Hey, find your own settlers, we got here first!
Posted by: Steve ||
11/18/2002 10:00 am ||
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Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has given an order to assassinate Islamic Jihad chief, Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, according to a report in Londonâs Sunday Times. The report claims that Sharon on Saturday ordered the Israeli Intelligence agents to move the Jihad Head, to the top of its hit list. Number one with a bullet.
Shalah resides in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Israeli Defense Minister Saul Mofaz has joined the instruction to exert all efforts to harm the Islamic Jihad. âWe shall hit terror, with an emphasis on the Islamic Jihad and the leaders of terror, wherever they shall beâ, Mofaz said during a meeting, which was held in his office following Fridayâs shooting attack in the West Bank town of Hebron. âThey must be found, from all organizations, and we must lay our hands on them.â It's nice to be wanted.
The Al Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility for the Hebron attack. So did Hamas, but we'll let you share.
Secretary General of the Islamic Jihad, Dr. Shalah told the Qatar-based Al Jazeera that the attack was committed to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority, so that the latter would end its contacts with Hamas on ending attacks against Israel. âThis is a message to Hamas and to Fatah,â he said, âWe donât agree with their understandings.â They just want to kill some Isrealis, we want to kill everyone!
Posted by: Steve ||
11/18/2002 10:09 am ||
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Senior security officials said the raid on the Palestinian Authority's Preventative Security headquarters in Gaza City was based on an interview with Yusef Magdad, among other things.
During his questioning, he told security officials that PA security officers supervised a series of weapons factories, which have produced thousands of mortar shells and anti-tank grenades. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!
Magdad said the PA distributed the weapons to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations. Further, Magdad said he witnessed preventative security officers firing mortar shells at Israeli communities in the area alongside Hamas activists. And they can't hit anything either.
Early Sunday, Israeli helicopters and tanks hit Gaza city, targeting a security compound. According to Israel Radio, the helicopters fired missiles at the headquarters of Palestinian Preventative Security. Soon after, tanks and soldiers moved in, demolishing buildings and setting fires. Vandels!
The Israeli forces reportedly pulled out after a roughly three-hour operation, leaving several of the 11 buildings in the security compound in ruins. The army said the offices were used to make weapons. An explosives laboratory, welding equipment, weapons, ammunition and a missile were found in the headquarters. Just your normal Palestinian neighborhood.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/18/2002 10:42 am ||
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Kinda makes you wonder exactly what "Preventative Security" is supposed to prevent, don't it?
Oh, and it's "vandals". Last I heard, they were in No. Africa, but that was quite a while ago...
An Australian man charged after a series of raids this month allegedly planned to bomb Israeli diplomatic buildings in Canberra and Sydney.
The security services in Australia took a lot of lefty/liberal heat for the raids they've been conducting recently. But it looks like there's been some payoff.
The 49-year-old man was arrested in Perth late last night over an alleged plan to bomb diplomatic posts in Australia, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said.
The man faces a charge of conspiracy to bomb diplomatic premises in Australia when he appears in the Perth Court of Petty Sessions this morning.
"This arrest is not connected to the Bali bombings," said AFP general manager national operations Ben McDevitt in a statement.
If I were this guy's lawyer I would be constantly reminding everyone about this. The Aussies are well and truly ticked off about Bali.
Mr McDevitt said the arrest followed interviews and the execution of a series of search warrants earlier this month.
The man's lawyer, Robert Mazza, said his client was accused of planning with others to target Israeli premises.
"He's been charged with two counts of conspiracy under the Commonwealth Crimes Act relating to an allegation that he and others intentionally planned to destroy or damage the Israeli embassy in Canberra and the Israeli Consulate in Sydney," Mr Mazza told ABC radio.
Mr Mazza said his client was in a Perth lock-up and would appear in court later this morning.
"He's been lodged, I think, late yesterday, that's late Monday evening, at the East Perth lock-up," he said.
"And I'm told that he'll be appearing in the central law courts in Perth later on this morning."
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
11/18/2002 03:56 pm ||
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But English-born Mr Roche, a convert to Islam 10 years ago, recently admitted attending meetings in Australia with Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged spiritual head of outlawed terror group Jemaah Islamiah.
He also told Australian newspapers he was trained to use explosives in Afghanistan two years ago.
Posted by: John B. ||
11/18/2002 17:35 Comments ||
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Good ol' Abu, spreading joy wherever he goes...
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2002 22:20 Comments ||
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Usama bin Laden is alive. That's the conclusion of U.S. intelligence analysts who officially determined Monday that an audiotape broadcast last week was the voice of the international terror mastermind. The analysis of the tape was performed by technical experts, linguists and translators at the CIA and National Security Agency, who compared the message to previous recordings of bin Laden. They are as certain as they can be that it is genuine, the intelligence official said. That's the definitly maybe part.
The Al-Jazeera journalist who obtained the tape said it was delivered to him in Pakistan Whoodathunkit?
He sounded undeterred by the loss of his home in the Taliban's Afghanistan or by the death and capture of several of his closest lieutenants. Not much of a loss really.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/18/2002 12:17 pm ||
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That didn't work out so well. Helluva a lot better than what I was imagining though. Goofy lookin' symbols, hosed HTML, crashed computers, uncontrolable fires, nukes in the hands of the North Koreans etc. I swear that last one was Clinton, not me.
Posted by: MIke N. ||
11/18/2002 12:09 Comments ||
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Better a live incompetent than a dead martyr. I sure hope he gets the bug to talk more.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
11/18/2002 12:31 Comments ||
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Great. So I hope our psyops boys just make sure that all the Arabs know that Osama cut and ran when the going got tough, and that doesn't care that his men got killed. Make sure that every government knows that aiding bin Laden is a sure way to get overthrown. Hey, why not start a rumor that bin Laden escaped only by dressing as a woman in a burkha?
Our number one goal is preventing further terrorist attacks. Getting bin Laden is nice, but it's a secondary goal.
Posted by: John Thacker ||
11/18/2002 13:06 Comments ||
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I agree with John T: Usama alive becomes a litimus test for any nation that harbors him.
#5
Well, since we now have a lot of phonemes pronounced by Binny hisself, why don't we start making our own tapes? Have him confess his passion for wild sex with male pigs or something, maybe have him call Muhammed a faggot...
David Warren addresses Canadian attitudes towards the war on terror. His column also contains the tidbit below on recent traffic analysis.
...Since the [Canadian]government is incapable of telling you the truth, let me tell you. In the moments leading to and from the release of that audiotape, the CIA was able to detect a large increase in traffic between Internet servers at suspicious locations. For the last two weeks, it has monitored the highest volume of likely Islamist traffic since it began to listen. Security services in Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Australia and the U.S. are on hyper-alert from fresh evidence in each country that large-scale attacks will be attempted in the near future. There are emergency preparations for civil defence and medical facilities.
The broadcast of that tape was not a "clue", but the very signal to prepare and launch new strikes. And the countries listed were the countries in which the strikes will be attempted.
Even the timing and motivation is explained -- on the tape itself. The current offensive is a last-ditch attempt to run interference for the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The so-called "experts" who claim it was not Osama speaking, because he did not make his traditional distance from Iraq's "secular" regime, have missed the point: the very omission was an acknowledgement that they are now in alliance.
Warren points out that Canadian appeasment makes Canada more, not less, vulnerable. He then goes on to speculate about the effects of a terror attack on the Canadian electorate.
Posted by: Pete S. ||
11/18/2002 01:40 pm ||
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Based upon the last sets of attacks, I agree about Canada. Why attack the French and the Indonesians, who were hardly enemies of Islamofacism? So, Canada, you're up. Take it like a hoser, eh?
Debka reports more fallout from the discovery in October of an IRA spy ring in the British government.
Our intelligence sources report that the October 5 police raid that smashed the ring lodged in the home of Ulster democracy touched off a multi-pronged undercover manhunt in Britain, Northern Ireland, Eire, Cyprus and Lebanon, as well as Northern Iraq. Its targets are Irish, Palestinian, Cypriot, Greek, Lebanese and Iraqi agents or go-betweens, who may have bought or mediated the transfer of security secrets stolen by members of the IRA spy ring.
...Their activities were not confined to top-secret briefing materials laid before Blair on the political and military situation in Northern Ireland. They also went after intelligence memos and encrypted messages passing between the British and American leaders in their exchanges on military and intelligence preparations for the Afghan War, the campaign against Iraq, the post-Taliban situation in Kabul and highly sensitive data pertaining to the global war on terror, including anti-al Qaeda tactics.
Immediately after that raid, the British prime minister made a grim report to President Bush who, thereupon sent a special CIA team to London for an initial independent assessment of the damage to American security interests. Our sources add that last weekâs London trip by the American Homeland Minister, Tom Ridge, was also connected with the affair. It came on the heels of several discreet rounds of inquiries by the CIA director George Tenet in London, Belfast and Dublin.
The most urgent purpose of the parallel probes is to track down the recipients of the secret documents. It is believed that some materials reached interested parties in the Middle East. Thus far, two such parties have been identified as Palestinian agents based in Cyprus and Lebanon and Greek Cypriot agents who work the region. Both groups have longstanding ties both with the IRA and with Lebanese and Palestinians associated with Iraq and al Qaeda operatives in Lebanon and the Persian Gulf.
Given the previously reportedIRA techniques in the West Bank, coupled with the IRA and Hezbollahlink via FARC, I would not be at all surprised if US plans have reached Iraq and al Qaida through the Irish Republican Army. These guys are all working together. Some links are tighter, some links are looser. The enemy of my enemy...
Posted by: Pete S. ||
11/18/2002 02:07 pm ||
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You mean the "friend of my enemy...", don't you?
Indonesian Vice-President Hamzah Haz has criticised the way police investigating the Bali bombing have raided Islamic boarding schools to hunt for suspects. Hamzah Haz, a controversial figure who heads Indonesia's Muslim-based United Development Party (PPP), said police should demonstrate more sensitivity. There's that word again.
"I hope raids like the previous ones, which were not pleasant, will not happen again," Mr Haz told reporters on Monday. I'm sorry, next time we'll bring flowers.
Police raids have prompted concern among Indonesia's large Muslim population, and raised the prospect of a backlash against government promises to crack down on terrorist groups. The fundo's don't want them shut down.
Indonesia's police on Sunday released pictures of six more suspects in the Bali bombing case, including one of the men they say is the leader of the group. Police said they believed at least six of the suspects were hiding out in "sensitive places" within Indonesia. Guess what those are?
On Monday, intelligence sources on Bali told the agency that officers believed the men were holed up in "pesantran" (religious schools). Bingo, we have a winner!
"This will make it difficult," the source, who asked not to be named, said. That's the idea.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/18/2002 02:58 pm ||
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SEVERAL explosions have been reported near a US military base outside of Tokyo, and a projectile launcher was found near the site, Japanese media said. No injuries or damage were reported.
In Washington, Major Timothy Blair, a Pentagon spokesman, said he had no details, but was told an explosion had been reported about 240 metres from Camp Zama, headquarters for the US Army Japan and the 9th Theatre Support Command. Damm, I've been there lots of times.
Japanese police suspected that leftist radicals had been involved in the blasts, Japan's Kyodo news service said.
According to Kyodo, several explosions were heard in a park near the base at around 11pm local time. Police responding to emergency calls found the launcher and burn marks nearby, indicating that it had been fired.There were no reports of injury and no other damage, it said. That's good to hear.
Police and local military officials were not immediately available for comment. Leftist radicals in Japan are known for using similar projectile launchers in attacks on targets related to the US military and the royal family. They do the same thing to Narita airport about once a year. You don't hear much about it as it worries the tourists.
In February, an explosion occurred near a baseball field at a high school in Kanazawa Ward of Yokohama, just south of Tokyo, near the US Navy's Koshiba Fuel Terminal. Both the far left and the far right want us out of Japan. Mostly they are careful not to kill anyone as that would be bad manners. A strange country, Japan.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/18/2002 03:27 pm ||
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As one who lived on Okinawa for several years in his long-ago boyhood (1974-1977), I can but agree with you on that last point, as will, I suspect, anyone who's well-acquainted with Japanese comics and animation (manga and anime). You might try finding the book "The Hollow Doll: A Little Box of Japanese Shocks", which was published along about 1990. It's a fascinating compendium of some of the _really_ bizarre aspects of Japanese society, which make terrorists who don't want to discommode anyone by blasting them to pieces look positively normal.
Posted by: Joe ||
11/19/2002 4:44 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
